He would have been a superb addition, especially if we still sign Myers to the one-year deal. I like Bourn because he's an exciting player, but no doubt I would have been much more happier with Jackson

Interesting. Comparing Kyle Lohse and Edwin Jackson seems like a good exercise to do, since Lohse is still out there and we appear to have gone harder after Jackson.

If you wanted evidence of how statistically-based the Indians front office is, this is pretty good evidence. Everybody knows about how Lohse went 16-3, 2.86, had a 1.62 BB/9, and kept the ball in the ballpark at a terrific rate for an average to below average ground ball guy.

But, if you look at the advanced metrics, Kyle Lohse has a lot of regression flags. For one, his FIP was 3.51 and he carried a very low BABip of .262 for a guy with a K/9 of less than 7. His SIERA, skill-interactive ERA, was 4.06, where "average" is considered 3.90-4.19. Why was it so high? Because he allowed the most line drives (by total number) of any pitcher in baseball.

On the flip side, Jackson had a 4.03 ERA and a 3.85 FIP had a 3.75 SIERA, because of a higher ground ball rate, far fewer line drives and 1.8 more K/9.

One could make an argument that Lohse would make more sense for us than Jackson because our outfield defense is vastly superior to our infield defense, but there are a lot of teams passing on Lohse for a reason. Somebody should get him at a decent price, even if he regresses, but the waiting game makes a lot of sense for teams.

BTW, just a side note, while I'm looking at this, Ubaldo Jimenez had the 10th highest line drive percentage among qualified pitchers at 23.4%.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe